Heil sei Euch Geweihten, A new beginning for Dean and Castiel
by sopranish
Summary: Each handled The Trials, only with their true mate at their side. Just like the Masonic Trials in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (Magic Flute). Turning tradition and plans on their sides, choosing their own destiny. Original Tumblr post, with fuller explanation and introduction: sopranish./post/50921904084/heil-sei-euch-geweihte n-a-dean-and-castiel-new


"Heil sei Euch Geweihten"

["Hail to you, Initiates"]

-final chorus of Die Zauberflöte, W. A. Mozart

* * *

Sam had meant to finish the Demon Trials with Dean at his side. Instead, Dean had gone with Castiel. The two of them, it had turned out, so powerful together that they'd undone what they hadn't even understood. Managed to initiate the Angels to the Fall and Earth, and themselves to enlightenment of the truth of the place. Managed to leave Hell with uneven rule.

It's Sam who opens the door to Cas leaning on the frame. Shock and relief added to Cas's new, mostly painful sensations of the last 12 hours. All Dean sees from his place across the room is a mix of emotions in those ancient eyes- sadness, awe, shock, confusion- that all mean one thing: Alive. He can barely stop a laugh as tears threaten to overwhelm him and he just yells, "Cas," and runs toward them.

The next few days are a haze for Cas. Sleep, an odd thing itself, wracked by nightmares and heavy medication as his injuries heal. Every time he wakes, Dean is there. With food, or water, or just presence. And, though Cas tries to avoid it, sometimes help to the bathroom.

"What about Sam? What about Kevin? My brothers and sisters? What about…?" Cas asks every time.

"It'll be ok. Sam's nearly better. We'll figure it out," is the constant reply. Sometimes he thinks he hears Dean reading or even singing to him.

One time he wakes to find himself propped up, his back against Dean's chest. Dean's hand is over his own chest, as he breathes deeply behind him.

"You weren't breathing regularly," Dean explains.

Castiel can't figure out why this feels like exactly what they were fighting for.

After four days, Cas gets up on his own, asks to walk around.

"I'll follow you," Dean puts one hand on Cas's shoulder to steady him and follows, working to focus on keeping him upright, and nothing else.

Cas realizes he's been changed into plaid drawstring pants and a t-shirt. It feels odd to miss physical layers once so arbitrary. Then again, it still feels odd to need to breathe. Dean seats him and runs to the kitchen.

Every sensation is so sharp; the hardness of the library chair, the cold floor. But his memories of humans learning to make chairs seem fuzzy and millions of years away. Everything is backward.

"Hey, Cas, buddy, it's ok," Cas hadn't realized he was crying but now Dean's hand is firm on his shoulder. He never knew how warm this hand was that he rebuilt from soul and ash?

"I'm sorry, Cas, it's a lot. Do you know, are you… did you Fall? Or- all those Angels, were you all… pushed? I'm sorry I let you go back there alone." Cas can't figure out why Dean is embarrassed. He's the one who was duped, whose body can't even seem to keep up with its new role. Cas sniffs ungracefully and tells Dean everything he remembers, as he takes small bites of sandwich.

Days pass. Cas finds some old jeans of Dean's, t-shirts and plaids all a little too big. More details he'd noticed over the millennia, but to which he'd never paid attention. It's demeaning to do so now, but Dean chuckles every time he appears wet-headed in more of his clothing, and that's something.

Sam comes and goes, healing in his time. Dean helps him. Kevin helps him, and takes to beer, video games, and some research when Sam's asleep. No one hears anything about the Angels.

"No, man, you don't get it, this is a classic. It's awesome," Dean praises Die Hard. Cas means to rebuff that assessment. But he finds himself a little lost in how Dean completely engrossed but smiling so widely. And how he now understands the metaphor of a heart full to bursting, at seeing Dean relaxed and happy. And how he suddenly wishes he could hold his hand.

But as more days pass the air becomes charged between them. Something electric from both of them, always there before but so enhanced now. Castiel guesses he can simply feel it more now. But then Dean avoids his gaze, seems almost resigned, almost angry. Things Castiel knows he'd hardly have noticed before. Castiel hardly knows the reason, or what to say, but he tries anyway.

"Dean, you didn't understand, before," he jumps right in while they're chopping vegetables for, of all things, a salad, a week later. He keeps chopping red peppers, but keeps an eye on Dean as he explains, "'ET', as you put it, wasn't going to go home. Well, any home but here, if that's what this could be. Could have been. I… except at first… I didn't just need you for your identity or your help."

"How's it coming?" Sam bounds in. Dean nearly cuts himself as he jumps. Castiel huffs, almost relieved to only have to do one part at a time.

Now that he's explained, he thinks things should get easier, but they don't. He finds himself annoyed as well. He and Dean hardly look at each other. He finds human urges in himself, the heat of which he never understood until now, which annoys and embarrasses him even more. It had been one thing with Meg; part experimentation, part giddiness, part using what even then he wanted to bring to Dean but knew he couldn't without risking losing him. He doesn't know why he takes that out on Dean now sometimes, the charge between them spilling into anger over shower times or the fate of Metatron.

Finally after tense night of snaps and barbs between them over a lack of leads and discussions of a possible sighting of Abbaddon, Sam and Kevin go off to bed.

"Hey," Sam warns Cas close to his ear, "You'd better clear out."

Finally it all clicks. Because Castiel finally knows that's exactly what he needs to stop doing. Everything he and Dean have been to each other, all of it. He needs to tell him this is ok too, this charge he realizes they're avoiding and burning off.

Fallen and embarrassed he is, so is Dean. Castiel himself needs to lead them through one last Trial, into unknown territory, sure it will be the land meant for them.

Castiel nods, but steels his courage and sits next to Dean across the corner of the table. Again he jumps right in. He needs to learn the skill around that. He catches Dean's eye from his beer and holds it.

"Dean. The things I've always felt toward you, the way I've come to… "

"Cas, stop, you don't have to do this man…" Dean rubs a hand through his hair, leaning back and forward again. Cas covers his hands with his, waits until Dean looks at him before releasing them but staying near.

"All my memories of you- securing your help, fighting beside you, everything we've been through together- they are all here, all the way back to Hell when your soul shone out." His eyes go distant for a moment and refocus. "I remember it all. But somehow they're different now. So much more raw, so intense it overwhelms me sometimes."

Castiel takes a deep breath to retain the moisture in his eyes, looks down at where their hands sit near each other on the table, as if he could read the answer looking between them. Looking up, he avoids Dean's gaze for just a moment, suddenly hoping he's not completely wrong. That Dean is not only strong enough to hear this, but wants to.

"Dean I owe you gratitude for more than helping me now, and you deserve more than gratitude. I know you didn't believe you deserved to be saved, but you did. But you also deserve to be loved. I've always known that, but now I feel that love in so many more and different ways." Dean stares at him and swallows hard, half disbelieving, half terrified.

Castiel has to duck his head to continue, "I find it all confused and conflated with things that your kind…our kind…were made to want with each other, but which I only ever saw with vague interest and disdain…"

And finally Dean can't hide from looking him right in the eyes, "And I find. Sometimes I find myself almost instinctively wanting things… well, I think it would put the Pizza Man to shame."

At that Dean laughs, head thrown back. And before he can finish, Cas is kissing him. He comes forward, not quite sure what to do, but knowing he needs to. His lips crush over Dean's, hands pulling Dean's face forward. Dean takes over then, mercifully, opening Cas's mouth with his tongue, showing Cas everything he had been wanting as they stand together.

Neither of them can remember or imagine a kiss like this. Heat and need and the intimacy of too much existence come out through faces held fast and tongues caressing. Cas can't decide if he needs to have his hands in Dean's hair or around his back. Dean can't take his hands off Castiel's face: here, real, right.

They cling to and claw at each other, pull each other as close as possible. Castiel feels Dean sigh, feels the hard lines of him mold into Cas as they kiss. He feels is own body give to Dean, learn how to bend.

The heat of it is overwhelming, neither ever fully stopping the kiss, but only moving to kiss each other's cheeks and eyes and jaw when they need to breathe. Castiel feels Dean and himself getting even more excited, but now it's not embarrassing, or experiment. It's another part of home.

They kiss hard and slow, first Dean controlling Castiel's mouth and showing him, Castiel turning it into something new and even more needful.

Finally, Castiel thinks, be it as Angel or Human, they are both truly initiated to the Highest. To Completion, to Love.


End file.
